


this is the end.

by littlesilhouetto



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Mission Fic, Other, Post-Skyfall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-13
Updated: 2015-06-13
Packaged: 2018-04-04 06:16:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4128003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlesilhouetto/pseuds/littlesilhouetto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>" This is the end. Hold your breath and count to ten. "</p>
<p>After months of chaos, confusion, and grief, Bond is finally able to clean up the last of the mess Silva created.</p>
            </blockquote>





	this is the end.

**Author's Note:**

> Skyfall is one of my absolute favourite films, I think it's pure genius. And Daniel Craig's James Bond is actual perfection, words cannot describe my love for that character. This is just my take on how MI6 would deal with the fallout post-Skyfall, with a healthy dose of 007/Q banter included (because hello, BrOTP??).

Urgent footsteps cut through the pre-dusk stillness that enveloped the landscape, feet crunching on the grass below with every step. The valley was almost lifeless as the sun descended, its amber glow just faintly illuminating the wild nature of the land below it. Silhouetted against the landscape was the lone, shadowy figure of a man, moving across the grass with short, powerful strides. The crisp, clean lines of his black tuxedo stood out against the unruly green of the grass beneath his feet, and a certain innate fluidity stood out as he moved, each step falling in what appeared to be exactly the right place. After walking for a short time, the figure stopped, suddenly, and dropped to a crouch. Strong fingers, rough from years of use, moved searchingly across the grass, stopping when they’d found a large iron ring, and with a little exertion the trapdoor was wrenched open, revealing a dark tunnel below it.

James Bond stared into the pit he’d just uncovered and grimaced.

“Are you sure this is the best way in?” he asked, casting one more disappointed look into the tunnel and then looking back up at the landscape around him. The sky, beginning to darken, was stained with a mixture of reds, oranges and purples, and with every minute that passed the colours became more blurred, like a watercolour painting in the rain. Bond wasn’t an aesthete, particularly, the natural world held no great attraction for him, but he could appreciate natural beauty from an objective point of view, and as it stood the valley he was in felt infinitely preferable to the dark and winding confines of the tunnel.

His earpiece crackled with a burst of static, and what sounded like a faint chuckle, before Q responded. “It’s the only way in that doesn’t involve you making an awful racket. And while I’m sure you’d love to go in through the front door, all guns blazing, M wants this done quickly and quietly, so I’m afraid the tunnel’s the only way.” James noted, with more than a little irritation, that Q sounded just as perky as he usually did, and wondered for what had to be the hundredth time how he’d ended up with an infant as his quartermaster.

“Fine,” he relented, taking a cursory glance around him to ensure he wasn’t being watched before lowering himself into the tunnel. Reaching into the pocket of his blazer, he pulled out a small torch and turned it on, illuminating a long passage that seemed to extend as far into the valley as he imagined it was possible to go. “I’m in,” he intoned softly, pulling out his gun and advancing further into the tunnel.

“Right,” came the reply. “Just follow the tunnel, for now, I’ll let you know which way to go if you come to any forks.”

James nodded, not caring if the other man couldn’t hear him, and made his way down the tunnel. He walked with a mixture of confidence and care, both sure that no one would be down here to discover him and cautious not to make too much noise. His soft footfalls echoed gently off the stone of the tunnel, and the sound resounded down the length of the passage, making it seem infinite.

As he made his way down the tunnel, James allowed himself to reflect on the mission ahead. This was the last step of the cleanup operation following what had come to be known within MI6 as the ‘Skyfall Incident’, and Bond was glad to be nearly rid of it. After he’d killed Silva, and Mallory had been instated as the next M (not a replacement, never a replacement, no one could ever replace her), James had returned to the island in the middle of nowhere and combed it from top to bottom, extracting every piece of information he could from the dystopian kingdom Silva had left behind. With the intelligence he’d gathered, a whole host of global criminal enterprises had been exposed, and 007, naturally, had been the first to be sent out to clean up the mess Silva had created. The man he was on his way to deal with, Emile Cartier, was an arms dealer, who had hidden himself from the prying eyes of law enforcement in a private lakeside villa in the heart of Switzerland. He was the last piece of the puzzle, as Mallory had put it to him in his briefing, the missing link. (He had a tendency towards the poetic, Bond had observed with some amusement.)

James hadn’t even listened to the rest of his explanation, had taken the job without blinking. This was it, the final job, and then the ugliness Silva had stained the Service with would be washed away. (At least superficially, Bond didn’t know if some of the stains he’d left could ever be cleaned out.) This was the last thing he had to do to avenge her, and he’d be damned if he wasn’t the one doing it, personally, and with more than a little happiness. He just wished she could be there to see him do it.

The tunnel in front of him widened suddenly, pulling James from his thoughts, and he looked up in some surprise to see a small room unfolding before him. It was largely empty, save for a few barrels of what was presumably some kind of alcohol, and there was a door at the other end. Mildly irritated by the interruption, Bond made his way over to the door, reaching out a hand to push it open, and sighed when it wouldn’t budge. “Q, why is there a door in my way?”

“What do you mean, a door?” he heard the quartermaster ask, and James fought very hard to suppress the sarcastic reply dancing on the tip of his tongue. He heard Q shuffling in his seat, and tapping something onto his keyboard. “There shouldn’t be any... Oh.”

“ _Oh_?” James echoed, raising an eyebrow, managing to imbue the short word with all of the irritation he was feeling.

“That room was put in fairly recently, it wasn’t on the version of the maps I had.”

“You’re telling me you didn’t have the most recent version?” Bond asked, and then rolled his eyes, expression both weary and faintly murderous. “If the rest of this bloody tunnel’s collapsed behind this door and you made me come down here for nothing, I swear to God...”

“No, no,” Q assured him hurriedly, “You should be just fine. Just give it a good, hard push.”

Bond muttered something unintelligible under his breath, and gave the door another shove. It refused to yield, however, and James thumped his fist against the grey metal, frustration beginning to creep in to his demeanour. Looking around him for something to use as a lever, his eyes came to rest on a few old pipes in the corner of the room. Running a hand through his blonde hair, Bond made his way over to the pipes, and after grasping one firmly in his hand, he gave it a hard pull, tearing it from its place on the wall. As he did so, the rest of the pipes got wrenched out of the wall as well, and a long, spidery crack spread quickly up the brickwork. A few stone fragments fell from the tunnel ceiling, and there was a faint crunching sound, as though the stone was looking to collapse.

“Oops,” Bond muttered sarcastically, casting a final glance at the mess he’d made before making his way back over to the door and wedging the pipe in between the hinges.

The voice in his earpiece was sardonic, and more than a little amused. “I know it’s difficult for you, 007, but could you at least  _try_  to get through a mission without breaking something?”

“Tell you what,  _Q_ ,” Bond bit out, voice slightly strained as he used all of his strength to push against the pipe, “Next time, why don’t  _you_  do the mission instead of me? Since you seem to be such an expert in field work.”

Q tutted softly, and James could almost  _hear_  him smiling.  _Bloody irritating child_. “You know I don’t like flying, I’d be no good at that. And, although it pains me to admit it, you do look better in a tuxedo than I do.”

“Ratty old cardigans more your style, are they?” James asked, a soft grunt slipping from his lips as he gave one final push, wedging the door open just enough for him to slip through. The steel door opened onto a long, dark tunnel, lit dimly only by thin shafts of light that filtered through the cracks in the building’s old brickwork, and even the torch James picked up from where he’d left it on the floor did little to illuminate the darkness. The thick, oppressive scent of old stone and damp assaulted Bond’s nose, and he grimaced, both at the regrettably familiar scent and Q’s chirpy manner. “ _Moron_ ,” he muttered under his breath, allowing his eyes to adjust to the gloom as he made his way down the passage.

There was a faint shuffling at the other end of the earpiece, and James imagined his quartermaster was sitting up just a little straighter in his chair. “What was that?” the younger man inquired.

James shook his head to no one in particular. “Nothing,” he responded with a smirk, even though he knew full well that Q had heard him. “Now, as much as you know I love idle chitchat,” he continued, smirk widening at the scoff he heard from Q, “Where do I go next?” He had stopped midway down the tunnel, confronted with a fork in the road, and as talented an agent as James Bond was, the power to predict which path to take eluded him. (He was practising his psychic powers, though, as he’d informed a mildly stunned Q after an incident in Belize that had involved an embassy firefight, a chase through some very dirty catacombs and some  _exceptional_  guesswork.)

"Left,” Q responded, almost without missing a beat, and Bond grunted in thanks, setting off down the left-hand tunnel. The dry, static air of the main tunnel changed abruptly as he walked, becoming much more humid, and the faint slats of light trickling down in between the old bricks illuminated several patches of mould crawling up the walls like ivy. Bond was no geographer, but he guessed that the tunnels were getting closer to the lake.

In his ear, he heard an intake of breath, and after a few clicks of the keyboard Q spoke again. “You’re near the end now, about another five hundred yards. At the end of it you should see a ladder leading up to a trapdoor.” Bond flicked his torch upwards, and the dancing beam of light alighted on a rusty-looking set of rungs running up the wall and out of sight.

“I see it.”

“Good. Go up it, through the trapdoor, and you should find yourself in Cartier’s cellar.”

Returning the torch to his pocket, James approached the ladder, putting a hand out to test the rungs. Satisfied they would hold him without snapping, he began to climb, casting his eyes upwards towards his destination. The ladder was long but he made short work of it, his heightened strength and endurance meant that the climb required no great exertion. When he’d reached the top, James gave the trapdoor a firm push, satisfied when it opened on the first attempt. Extending his gun upwards like a periscope, he stuck his head out of the opening, sky-blue eyes quickly but efficiently assessing the room for any hostiles or obstacles and, finding none, he ascended the last few rungs and pushed himself out of the tunnel and into the cellar.

The room he found himself in was, much like the tunnels he’d just emerged out of, built entirely of stone, although it was considerably less musty. Rows upon rows of bottles lined the walls, framing the square space like glass sentries. Approaching a rack of wine bottles, Bond cast an evaluative eye over Cartier’s collection, and was not disappointed with the quality (and expense) of wine he found, making a mental note to return after the op had been completed and relieve the arms dealer of a few bottles.

Turning on his heel, he found the steps leading up to the cellar door, and ascended them quickly, his polished black Oxfords making barely any noise on the floor as he moved. The question  _where to now?_  was on the tip of his tongue, but Q pre-empted the query. “Out of the cellar and to your right, then take the first left turn. The package should be in the room at the end of the corridor.”

Committing the information to memory, James gently prised open the cellar door, grateful when it made no noise, and looked into the corridor it opened onto. He heard the faint stamp of guards’ feet in the distance, but as they were coming from his left he didn’t bother waiting for them to pass, slipping out of the cellar and making his way right. Gun clasped firmly in his hand, he took short, businesslike steps down the corridor, hugging the wall as he went, and snapping his gaze to either side of him every few paces to ensure that no one was coming. He made it to the necessary turning uninterrupted, and was about to take it when he heard the sound of urgent footsteps coming his way. Darting behind a nearby column, Bond was just in time to see a guard emerge from down the corridor, evidently on one of his hourly rounds. As soon as the man had turned to face away from him, Bond lunged forward, snapping his arm around the other’s neck and holding him in a firm headlock. The guard didn’t even have time to struggle or call out, and the vice-like grip obstructing his airway squeezed tighter and tighter. Bond counted five seconds before he felt the man’s body go limp in his grip, eyes glazing over as he passed out. Letting him sink gently to the floor, Bond made short work of dragging him into an empty room nearby, making sure to take the batteries out of his walkie-talkie so that his absence wouldn’t be discovered for a while. Locking the door behind him, James checked briefly that no one else was coming before making his way down the corridor to the room at the end.

One hand resting on the door handle, he placed his ear to the oak wood, listening for sounds of movement within, and smirked when he head the sound of a shower running.  _Excellent_ , he thought,  _I can surprise him when he gets out_.

Casting one last evaluative glance at the hallway behind him, James turned the handle and slipped into the room, turning the lock until it clicked. The space that unfolded in front of him was exactly what he expected Cartier’s bedroom would look like. A rich, burgundy carpet covered the floor like a stain, as though someone had spilled a huge glass of red wine, and the walls were panelled with a dark wood, the colour of black coffee. The room’s furniture was carved out of a similar wood, with the kind of baroque patterns James had come to expect from an enthusiast of the 18th century like Cartier was. All of the other furnishings, including the handles on drawers, lampshades, and curtain railings were, unsurprisingly, made out of gold; and the whole room gave off the impression of a poorly written Victorian novel, the kind that James’ aunt used to read. 007 rolled his eyes at the gaudy interior, and turned towards the en-suite bathroom, taking the opportunity to screw the silencer onto his gun as he waited.

The sound of the shower continued for a few minutes, but Bond didn’t mind the waiting. He was, by design, a solitary man, and such habits had engendered a certain patience that other people often found difficult to maintain. He spent much of his time in the company of his own thoughts, usually doing some form of exercise or improving his mind in some way. He could, if needed, be sociable, loud even, but solitude, and the silence that came with it, that was his preferred mode, the field within which he operated. Silence was his friend, his protector, it filled the shadows he sneaked through and blanketed the world he surrounded himself in. Many of his kills had been silent, swift, making no more sound than the soft  _snick_  of a bullet flying through the air and the dull  _thud_  of a body hitting the ground. There were, of course, the loud ones, involving explosions and machine gun fire and fistfights, but generally Bond preferred to do his jobs quietly and quickly, leaving no trace of his presence other than the corpses he left in his wake.

“God, he’s been in there for ages.” In the silence of waiting, James had almost forgotten that there was an earpiece in his ear. Q let out a huff, the kind of sound that only the young and impatient could produce. “What’s he doing, writing a novel?”

Bond rolled his eyes, and resisted the temptation to point out that ‘ages’ was actually four minutes and thirty-seven seconds, and that his quartermaster should stop being so bloody impatient. Instead, he settled for a calm, “I’m sure he’ll be out soon enough,” his tone non-committal and flat. He could hear Q fidgeting through his earpiece, but James stood stock still, and the only muscles that moved were his eyelids as he blinked. He could wait for an hour, if need be, moving only to prevent his body from stiffening up. He’d done it before, more than a few times, remained utterly motionless so as to avoid detection or to surprise an assailant, standing almost like a statue, a sentinel, ready to strike at any moment despite his utter stillness. He sensed, however, that Q would deal considerably worse with a long wait, and so he felt a faint throb of relief when he heard the water being turned off, and the sound of someone towelling themselves odd.  _Told you_ , he thought rather than said, and his posture suddenly changed to one of aggression, his shoulders squaring, his body like a tightly coiled spring, ready to act instantly.

Footsteps echoed across the tiled floors of the bathroom (marble, if Bond had to guess), getting ever closer, before a man clad in a snow white dressing gown emerged. He was shorter than Bond by a head and much less muscular, and close-cropped black hair covered his head, combed to cover the bald patch emerging at the back of his skull. His skin was a dark olive colour, a sign of his Turkish heritage, and a large tattoo of a phoenix, its wings spread out wide, was splayed across the top of his right arm. He was, by all accounts, unremarkable, just another in a long line of criminals that James had faced, another statistic to go in his already impressive MI6 file, recorded diligently in the list of 007′s kills. Soon, he would become nothing more than a number, a case file to be stored in a records room and never looked at again. If empathy had been one of the emotions Bond allowed himself, he might have considered it rather an ignominious way to die, but as it stood he felt nothing for this man, nothing but the same ruthless determination that drove him on every job he did.

“Hello, Emile,” he said, his mouth curling with a hint of a smirk as Cartier startled at the sound of his voice. His tone was level, unemotional, as conversational as it would be if he were simply asking the time. “You have a beautiful home.”

Panic filled the other man’s eyes as he realised what James was there to do, and his muscles tensed up in fear, one hand reaching out towards his bed for the gun he had hidden there. 007 was faster, inevitably, and in one smooth motion he raised his gun and fired. The bullet made a soft whipping sound as it exited the barrel of the silencer, cutting through the air in a perfect straight line. It hit Cartier’s head just as his hand reached his duvet, embedding itself squarely in between his eyes. A perfect shot, as always, and as soon as the bullet reached skin the life began to drain from the arms dealer’s eyes, and in a matter of seconds his body crumpled to the ground, lifeless, a steady stream of blood tricking out of the hole in his head, the crimson liquid soaking into the burgundy carpet beneath.

Bond watched the proceedings with no emotion, as he always did. He’d almost lost count of how many bodies he’d put in the ground, and he’d seen this sight countless times, had watched the life leak out of a myriad of different eyes of different colours. He remembered them all, too, all the different shades and flecks of colour; remembered which ones begged him to spare them and which ones accepted their fates stoically and with a steady countenance. He could count them all in his head, mulling the number over and over in his mind. He used it to keep himself focussed, so that he’d never lose sight of who he was, and to keep his mind sharp. Sometimes he recited their names in his head, too, starting from his very first kill and adding to the list as his life went on, as the stain of red he left behind him grew ever larger. Many couldn’t handle his life, the responsibilities of it and the great moral weight that pressed on your shoulders and threatened to crush you if you let it. Bond had always borne the burden stoically, without complaint, like Atlas holding up the world on his unyielding shoulders, and had never experienced the trauma that some agents were left feeling after passing through the hallowed halls of MI6. He had different demons that plagued him, different fears that he kept tightly locked inside the steel boxes within his mind, but his job had never troubled him, not once. There wasn’t room for that kind of emotion when you wore the rank of Double O.

“Done,” he barked into the earpiece, when he was satisfied Cartier was well and truly dead, his tone clipped and commanding, as it usually was when he was on the job. He heard Q murmur something in assent at the other end of the line, and so Bond made his way towards the balcony of Cartier’s villa, throwing open the screen doors and stepping out, closing his eyes for the briefest of moments as the cool evening air washed over his face, a pleasant change to the balmy warmth of the house’s interior. Behind him, he heard one of Cartier’s henchmen knock and call out to his boss, and when he received no reply he began to shake the door handle, whilst another called out to the arms dealer again, but James paid the sound no mind. From the distance, the faint cutting sound of helicopter blades grew louder and louder until a black helicopter swam into view, coming to rest level with the large balcony.

Shaking some of the tension out of his shoulders, James made his way towards the chopper, even as the sound of the henchmen trying to get into the room grew even louder behind him. Just as they broke through the locked door, and came face to face with the sight of their boss’ corpse on the floor in front of them, Bond stepped nimbly into the helicopter. Looking up at him with stunned faces, the men blinked for a few seconds before snapping into action, running out onto the balcony as they pulled out their semi-automatic rifles, sending a hail of bullets towards the helicopter as it took off. It was too late, however, and Bond waved the men a jovial goodbye as the chopper flew further and further away from the lakeside villa, disappearing into the skies beyond it.

Sitting back in his seat, he felt the burn of someone’s gaze on him, and Bond half-turned his head towards the source, raising his eyebrow in expectation.

His gesture was answered with a curt nod, one that spoke of a background in the military. “Nice work, 007.”

The left corner of Bond’s mouth curled up in a smirk at that. “Thank you, M.”

**Author's Note:**

> I sincerely hope you enjoyed reading that as much as I enjoyed writing it, and if you did, let me know by reviewing! c:


End file.
